Work Text:
It’s easier entering the house than it is to leave. She can forget herself at the doorway. Leave her coat on the kitchen bench and allow herself to be tugged and stripped down the hall. But the aftermath makes it difficult.
Everything before is fast, heated and made to disorientate and distract her from herself until everything is forgotten and there’s nothing more than just this. No control, no hesitations, no fears or worries or what-ifs and maybes.
There’s just this. Just sex and Franky.
Most of the time. Sometimes her mind in full and complicated and the rot of her daily life seeps in. But she tries not to think about it. She tries to look forward and focus on what’s happening now instead of the what mights and could possibly’s of her future.
She knows Franky’s home when the kitchen light is on. There’s a pause in her car, where she looks at the lit window and tries to leave every frustration behind, tries to bury the situation in lies and small comforts before she slides out of her car, which is new and shiny and of place in the row of cheap houses that falling apart. It only further goes to show how wrong this is, but she doesn’t care once her feet hit the pavement.
Her heels will click up the concrete path, sliding against caked dirt before Erica’s hand grabs the bannister and walks up the three chipped-red, stone steps. She doesn’t have to knock, the doors unlocked and Franky knows she’s hear even if the purr of her cars engine is too quiet to hear pull up.
Franky always knows and Erica’s vain enough to appreciate it more than fear it.
Her coat slides down her arms first, the keys rattling in the pocket as it slides over the back of kitchen chair.
Sometimes Franky’s making dinner when she enters, sometimes she’s huddled over a laptop, or papers, or books in the lounge room. Sometimes she’s just leaning against the archway, arms folded and a shit-eating grin on her face as she runs her eyes slowly over Erica’s form.
That’s enough. That look. Everything in Erica’s head goes black and it’s like she’s temporarily cured then of everything that’s black and festering inside of her.
Franky’s slow to step forward, she wants Erica to make that first move, to make those heels take that step from the kitchen linoleum to her. And Erica does, every time she tries to resist, tries to look away, but she always gives in. She always will. Because she’s tired and she hurts and Franky’s hands burn her skin.
And god she wants to be burned, she wants to be touch until her skin blisters and bruises and there’s a spiderweb of red welts and scratch marks running over her skin.
Her feet move, heels click off from the peeling stained floor, onto the dirty carpet.
All it takes is that step forward, and then suddenly, Franky is against her, in front of her, and hands are on her shoulders, around her waist and she can feel nails through her shirt, sliding down her back as lips press and push and she gasping to breathe. She’ll lash back, fight, because a part of her will always try to pull away; a part of her will feel the twin rings on her left hand before they’re ripped from her and carelessly tossed away. And with that relief she’ll melt into Franky as she was always supposed to.
She used to complain, she used to gasp and pull away, shoving Franky away to look for them on the uneven patches of carpet. Now, Franky’s teeth slide down her neck, and Erica feels the arm tighten around her waist as her knees almost give in.
She’s pushed against the couch, her lower back bouncing against the hard spine where her shoes are kicked off and hands are palming, reaching for everything as she’s kissed within an inch of her life.
Then, Erica will shove Franky away, pushing her against the wall, near the light switch neither of them touch. There, buttons are hastily undone, shirts are torn down and over arms before being left in a messy pile where Erica will kiss and pull, her fingers running over the warm skin and clinging until she leaves crescent moon marks on Franky’s shoulder blades.
Franky will yank her arms, pulling them away to grab at her wrists as she hisses from the marks. Erica’s satisfied and not, and she fights the holds until a tongue darts out, licking her bottom lip.
Then she allows Franky to push, teeth tugging her at her mouth as she twists their bodies down the hallway, until they trip and fall with Erica’s back against the wall, her head banging next to an ugly painting, beside the open bathroom. The pinned wrist are held above her head and she can feel their fingers entwine as Franky kisses her again and again until her lips are swollen and their hands slide down the down the wall, clasping together.
Sometimes she uses teeth to tear at her mouth and sometimes Erica taste blood on her tongue as Franky pulls away, holding her eyes as she unzip Erica’s skirt and slides it down her legs.
Erica can feel the tight coiling in her stomach, feel her own fingers shake with desperation as she reaches to steady them against the damn silver button of Franky’s jeans. She needs to keep moving, keep ripping and tearing until there’s nothing left but exposed skin.
Sometimes she undoes it, her fingers ripping apart the fly before she ravels the denim down and buries her fingers into the wet cotton.
Most of the time Franky pulls her hands away, resting them against warm shoulders as kisses trails down her ribs, over her stomach, until she hooks her fingers over the black lingerie.
When lips graze over her navel and Erica can feel a deep moan humming in her chest, she’ll look down at the blue eyes, at the mischief and sadness and the so many layers that are inside and make-up Franky Doyle. There’s so much unsaid, so much caused by her own hand. She should fix it, make it better, assure her that it will be okay.
Even if it’s not, and it won’t. Because this has to end, but she can’t do it this time, not when Franky’s the only thing she looks forward to every day of every week. And Mark’s starting to notice the guilt that slips over her face when she can’t make plans, when she’s late home, when she forget their anniversary.
When he’s holding his baby nephew and looks at her in such a way that she has to leave the room.
“Erica. Look at me.”
She gasps, looking down, and the darkness recedes from around her eyes. There’s Franky, only Franky and she’ll never look at her like Mark does.
Franky looks at her like there’s nothing else. Like she’s a game, and food, and a prized possession. She looks at her and Erica can’t think, but she can breathe.
Sometimes Franky’s hands will rest on the garter belt, trailing over the lace and stockings as she smirks up at her. It’s a sharp change, and her thumb will trail a line over were the strip of thigh is revealed, reminding Erica of when she woke up that morning, when she showered and kissed Mark goodbye. When she dressed herself and thought of Franky, her fingers hooking clasps and smoothing down lace as she imagined what Franky would say when she saw her.
But she doesn’t say anything. Her mouth parts, and she’s still smirking at her, because she knows Erica obediently dressed, obediently shopped and bought the lingerie she asked for, and wore them today.
And she knows, even though Erica lies to herself in the morning, lies to herself as she shops and hides the bag in her closet and tells herself it’s for Mark.
But it’s all worth it as she looks down at Franky on her knees. The ex-convict watches her reaction, forces her to hold eye contact as she kisses her thigh, sliding a hand up on either side of the same leg.
Erica’s sure that down there, even through the lace, Franky can smell the arousal, can possible see it because she can’t remember the last time she felt this tingly and warm and wet and her body’s clenching and throbbing already before she’s even been touched.
But a hand settles on her lower belly, grounding her as she rolls her eyes skyward and squeezes them shut while the kiss moves up higher and closer but far away.
Erica both loves and hates this part. This part, Franky takes her sweet time with. This part, is like unwrapping decadent, expensive chocolate, and Erica knows she wants to take her time, watch it unravel before she devours her. But the teasing is so long and painful that she aches.
And the ache only turns more and more painful as her fingers slowly trace over the satin suspenders. They trail the length and edges, her nails bluntly running shivers against the thighs as she snaps the material.
“For fuck’s sake.”
“Uh-uh. Hands where I can see them, or I’ll cuff them,” Franky warns, looking up at her seriously, and Erica has no doubt that she’ll do as she said.
Her knees almost slip at the thought.
But Franky’s fingers are nimble and eventually she slides the suspender’s hooks from the stockings slowly between long, slow kisses on each thigh that almost lick Erica’s underwear, and certainly leave large, purple marks on the skin that Erica will see every time she rolls her underwear down.
Finally, her fingers curl around the lace and slowly she tugs the underwear down, pulling it down the stockings until she makes Erica step out of it before discarding it over her shoulder. It’s around here, Erica’s painfully aware of how long the affair’s gone on for. Long enough that she’s exposed to cool air and sweat doesn’t trickle down her spine, nor does sunlight spill through the windows.
It’s long enough to know that this is more than an affair and she has to make it stop, has to make it go away or make a choice between everything she’s built; her career, her reputation, Mark or...
But there are lips and tongues and Franky’s everywhere and nowhere near enough. And it starts out soft, gentle and then there’s long strokes, that a soft and then firm and enter and nibble before she thinks that she can’t take any more, until there are fingers, sliding and widening and entering and- oh god.
She’s almost, almost, almost but Franky won’t let her get there. She laughs and the chuckle rumbles vibrations through her and they haven’t even reach the bedroom and it’s not Saturday night and why the fuck have they already fallen into a pattern. This is not okay, this is not right.
She’s going to go to Hell.
But if it’s Franky between her thighs and the uncomfortable itch of the wall restricting her movements, then maybe Hell will be okay, maybe she’ll be okay, maybe maybe maybe maybe-
“Fuck.”
It’s sharp, and hot and her body squeezes and clenches and arches until she sliding down, falling onto her knees. At some point between orgasm and now, she realises Franky’s pulled away, but it’s one one big sensation in her mind where she can’t differentiate between pleasure or pain or anything.
All she knows is that she suddenly feels empty without her inside of her.
Hours later she’ll be fucking Mark and thinking of Franky, noting the absence of fulfilment and feeling unwanted differences because how could she not? She loves Mark, loves him mind and soul. She wants to spend the rest of her life with him, only him with him being enough for her. With her being enough for him, good enough for him.
But the fact remains that he’s not, she not and she wishes that she’d met Franky before Mark, before she was thrown in prison. She wishes she took the woman’s hand in the Velvet Curtain because maybe that would have lead her to Franky before Mark.
Because Franky is body and soul and mind. And she’s smart and wonderful and complex and being with her is hard and passionate and there there are days where Franky makes her feel sixteen and she goes home and fucks Mark because she knows Franky knows and she wants her to know, she juvenilely wants her to feel that anger she feels everyday. She wants her to break into her house and fuck in her marriage bed when Mark’s not home, and almost get caught and don’t because being with Franky is like breathing and she doesn’t want to ever stop.
And maybe that’s love, maybe.
But it doesn’t matter. Because it’s not enough. Mark’s not enough. Work’s not enough and she can’t have them all. She’s here now and she has to make a choice between Franky and everything else.
But she doesn’t want to. So she won’t. And instead of weighing the choices and decisions and talking to Franky like a fucking adult, she instead reaches out finally undoes the jeans, sliding her body on top of this woman. Kissing her as if it’s there last night on earth, because in this world, this fantasy bubble they’ve created, it just might be.